Enough!

I've had it with computers, computer techs, and that whole business.  It's time to say, "Enough is enough, and I've had enough!"  Thank goodness the evil Grace, for all her talking, never got around to asking/telling me to do or change anything because the fifty-nine (yes, 59!) updates that downloaded yesterday morning seem to have healed the problem.  My financials are gone forever but in the grand scheme of things, I can live with that.  Out here in the boonies, the telephone and the Internet keep me in touch with the outside world.  The loss of either leaves me feeling very isolated.  Were the Internet animate, I would give it a hug and say, "Welcome back!"  (I'm going to cancel tomorrow's appointment.)

Under Pearl's close supervision, I did get one Christmas tree put together last evening.  She inspected every branch that came out of the box, chewing on a few before passing judgment, stepping back to get a better view of the construction.  I guess I did an okay job because as soon as I moved the completed tree to the corner, Pearl turned her attention to her primary goal, the box.  The box still sits in the living room as I couldn't bring myself to dislodge the small cat who had made herself so comfortable.  Frank apparently is waiting until I get the tree decorated; he is fond of batting ornaments and chewing on the pearl swags.  There will be a slight delay with that as I did not check the strands of lights before laboriously putting them on the tree.  Silly me.  Of course the three connected cords needed to be distributed and redistributed before I plugged them in.  Of course it is the middle strand that is nonfunctioning.  Of course I walked away and abandoned that project for the night.  It wouldn't do to pitch the thing out into the dark, which was my first inclination.  My patience has been worn down to a nub.

Even the ground was frozen yesterday.  The chickens had mini-ice rinks in their pens where the rain puddles were.  I left them to play while I crunched on icy grass in the path down to the barn.  Bundled up like Nanook of the North (inside joke here with my daughter Deb), I still had to apologize to the goats as I put icy fingers on their warm udders.  Cindy is down to giving only about a cup a day and I had decided not to milk her at all and let her dry up completely.  She got up on the stand, ate her breakfast, and I put her out the door.  "Mom!  You forgot something!"  Routine is so ingrained in these animals, she tried to force her way back in every time I opened the door.  Finally I let her in and squeezed out that pitiful cupful.  She went away happy.  Hey, if that's all it takes.

Twenty-six again this morning.  I need to get the wood stove going.  Enough of the high-tech stuff, I'm ready to get back to basics.